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Controversy Continues Over Iranâ€™s Rockets And Weapons

Iran’s linked development of nuclear energy and surface-to-surface missiles is motivating multiple missile-defense programs, including most of Israel’s work, exports of Patriot PAC-3 and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles to the Middle East, and U.S. deployment of elements of the European Phased Adaptive Approach missile defense system. The progress of Iran’s projects, however, remains under debate and wrapped in secrecy.

The Obama administration has led efforts by the P5+1 group (U.S., Russia, China, France and Britain—the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—plus Germany) to negotiate agreements that confine Iran’s nuclear program to civil uses and provide assurance against covert or overt breakouts from such restrictions. Optimists see the current slump in oil prices putting pressure on Iran to pursue an agreement to lift sanctions.

Some see a nuclear agreement as sufficient to contain Iran’s missile program. Medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles are mainly nuisance weapons because of poor accuracy and high cost, unless combined with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) payloads. They are ineffective against most military targets and, given the tracking, prediction and communications technologies available, a civil defense system can eliminate many casualties without forcing an entire city to take shelter.

Others, however, see risk in two areas. One is that Iran may see the P5+1 process as a stalling tactic, and wait for the consensus on sanctions to erode. The other is that Iran might add guidance systems to its weapons, making them lethal and effective against more targets.

Sanctions were imposed because of an “unprecedented and inherently ephemeral set of circumstances,” notes Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. These include the inflammatory rhetoric of then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and domestic repression.

In Mahoney’s view, “for months, Iran’s diplomacy has been focused on ensuring that Washington is seen as the spoiler if . . . prospects for a deal . . -. go south.” She suggests the obstacle is simple: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is not interested in any agreement that does not leave the nation’s nuclear capabilities intact.

Even if there are successes in negotiations or failures in Iran’s nuclear program, there is evidence that progress in missile development continues. In a presentation last year, Israeli missile-defense pioneer Uzi Rubin argued that indicators pointing to slowdowns in missile development, which some analysts see as the result of sanctions, may be misleading. Rubin cited ongoing if unsuccessful space-launch attempts and the May 2013 unveiling of a transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) for the 2,000-km-range (1,245-mi.) Shahab-3 missile. The TEL was not a prototype: Iran showed a production line, and modifications to the unit’s design disguise it as a civilian tractor-trailer.

Other developments include Iran’s announcement in February 2014 of a multiple reentry vehicle (MRV) payload for the Shahab-3. The following month, Iran’s Fars news agency announced that the Shahab and the newer 800-km-range Qiam were equipped with MRVs, and showed images of 24 Qiams, apparently in a tunnel, and 44 weapons in a hangar. Also recently unveiled was Kadr F, which is capable of covering 1,950 km. Rather than a slowdown, Rubin says tests are being concealed as “part of a wider diplomatic effort to ease . . . sanctions.”

Rubin also warns of progress in adding GPS guidance to missiles. An October 2014 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) quotes him as saying Iran added a guidance system to the 210-km-range, 600-kg (1,320-lb.) Zelzal-2 warhead and could do the same with longer-range missiles. “This threat can degrade the [Israeli military’s] ground capabilities,” Rubin says. “It can paralyze Israel’s war economy . . . and . . . inflict massive casualties.”

Rubin says nations such as Iran find missile development easier and cheaper than building or maintaining strike aircraft. In a 2013 interview, he noted that “we are in the middle of a revolution” in guided rocketry. “An iPad can guide a missile,” he said, predicting a widespread increase in the use of guided ballistic missiles in the next five years.

Others are more cautious. The CSIS report pointed to areas of uncertainty, including “limited tests under ‘white- suit’ conditions” that give a distorted impression of accuracy and lethality, the potential effectiveness of missile defense systems, and the risks and costs of retaliatory strikes. Even with guidance systems that offer better theoretical circular-error-probable numbers, “CEP applies to 50% of perfectly located and launched missiles that operate perfectly in flight to reach a perfectly located target . . . [P]ractical test and evaluation, as well as U.S. combat experience warn that the error budget of things that can degrade operational accuracy in a real world missile is far greater than the accuracy of the platform would suggest.”

Discuss this Article 22

Why would anyone let Iran get anywhere near nuclear weapon's capability when they actually went out and bombed a Synagogue in Argentina?
Isn't that called terrorisim and why does the West seem so complacent about letting terrorists have Nukes?

Why would anybody start a war based on blatant lies, which killed hundreds of thousands of people and wounded and displaced millions?

Why would anybody trust a country which supports, and even finances, some of the most brutal, totalitarian and repressive regimes on the planet.

For example; in Saudi, women can't drive, walk alone in public or get an education without a man's permission.

In Iran, (while very far from perfect), women can vote, (for a limited value of democracy), get an education (over half of Iran's university graduates are women), drive and even walk outside without having to be escorted by a man.

It seems some have forgotten that all but one of the 9/11 murderous thugs were Saudi. Saudi madrassas have been spreading the ultra fundamentalist wahabi sect of religion and have been training terrorists for decades. ISIS has used Saudi Arabian society as a good start to properly worship Islam.

Nobody's hands are clean when it comes to inhumane acts...not even those of the USA.

So, in short, totally ignore NZ1's very legitimate questions.
The motives of Iran are clear for all to see: they want an "Islamic Bomb" and the means to delivery it to a target. All steps should be taken to curtail their programs, at any cost.

Sorry Joe, yours is a typical weak false moral equivalency deflection none of which answers the question why anyone outside of purveyors of terror and hate think it would be a good idea for Iran to have nuclear weapons.

1. How do you know there is no proof? No one in Argentina is debating whether Iran was involved, they are debating and protesting over an Iran cover up by the Argentina prime minister and the death of a prosector who had audio recordings backing up his findings.
2. I think civilization is a great idea, where there are rules, otherwise we all behave like ISIL. Knowingly bombing a building full of civilians and only civilians, indicates a moral code going back to the dark ages and those people don't deserve nukes.

It is because the "Anointed One" who everyone has forgotten his promise to stop Iran from developing weaponized uranium 6 years ago, doesn't have the guts to stand up to them. He believes them when they say their program is for medical and energy use only . . . that's why it is all underground I guess. Peaceful according Islamic law.

Now might be a good time to buy oil company stocks. When Iran tests its device, whether in N. Korea or the Mideast, Israel will react and Iran will blockade the Straits of Hormuz. The U.S. has badly neglected mine warfare (in order to buy too many aircraft carriers). The U.S. has also badly neglected anti-submarine warfare. Iran's quiet diesel submarines will help in the blockade. NATO's inability to track the Somali pirate motherships show just how vulnerable we are to Iran's much quieter diesel subs.

I can't speak to the USN's prowess on mine warfare but regarding diesel subs and the USN readiness...

A) Iran's sub force consists of three aging Kilo's of which they have only one able to actually go to sea (patched up with Iranian made parts). The rest are a bunch of crappy small to mini subs (one of which sank practicing sinking a US Carrier). Their Sub force would be on the bottom of the seas after day one.

B) The USN has not badly neglected anti sub warfare (despite what many web blogs think), they even went so far as to rent a whole sub and crew from Sweden (HMS Gotland) for three years to train against.
Regardless the Iranian sub fleet (and Navy and armed forces) are so incompetent it really doesn't matter much.

Mines is a much different problem. They wouldn't down the Gulf but they sure would slow traffic down. for awhile.

Israel may well be a "one-bomb" country, meaning that a lucky hit on Tel Aviv or Jerusalem with a 10-100 megaton nuclear warhead might shatter Israel's ability to defend itself from subsequent attack. Even unguided missiles get lucky sometimes. This is a threat that cannot be taken lightly.

Even if the whole country were to be annihilated (which Iran certainly cannot do) it is strongly believed Israel does have nuclear armed cruise missiles on it's subs as well as ballistic missiles in hardened silos.

1. Iran has as much right to WMD and the vehicles to deliver them as anyone. Seriously, it is not Iran's fault that the Israeli's are hated by the entire Muslim population of the Middle East for having stolen their Lebensraum from the Palestinians, much as the Germans planned on doing so from the Russians. Talk about hypocrisy.

2. Will the Iranians commit to some form of neutrality arrangement by which the formers statements of Khameini and Ahmadinejad are disavowed? If not, then Israel is in no worse a position than West Germany was from 1945-89 with her security from overrun or annhiliation mandated by survivable, out of area, forces in the U.S.. Does Israel believe the U.S. is going to abandon our nukes anytime soon? We just committed to a new SSBN and replacement of the Minuteman.

3. Iran can solve for most of the accuracy problems stated, simply by planning out the battle strategy ahead of time and carefully grooming the weapons to bring them to peak reliability and functionality. If they are designed well, they should be amenable to by-stage X-ray analysis of things like solid fuel integrity as well as subsystem guidance and flight control electronics. She can survey sites within a whisked on a gnat's behind and she run radar surveys of downrange wind patterns at launch. She can even do test launches to demonstrate full up guided and degraded mode guidance package function using sub-scale sounding rockets to mount the guidance package under operational acceleration, vibration and trim change loadings.

But can she solve for targeting?

The Russians were getting so good with Iskander in the latter days of the Chechen Campaign that a rebel leader could dial up is wife and say goodnight to his kid and before he disconnected a missile fell through the roof of not just the home but the room he was standing in.

This does indeed make tactical ballistic warfare quite capable /without/ WMD warheads but you have to have a game plan in place which acknowledges a certain percentage loss to Pine Tree/Arrow and THAAD/ERINT systems and that means developing complex target folders as 'what if' WarPlans.

Anyone who has read _Fifteen Minutes_ by Keeney realizes how hard this is to do when the enemy is essentially a closed state where a careless camera click can get you arrested. Striking Israel is not simply a Google or MapQuest moment away.

For Saudi and Kuwait and Qatar this might not be the case, simply because, while their counter intelligence assets are quite good in many cases, they have assets which can be easily photo'd from international shipping coming into a lading terminal with the refinery that services it 'just across the bay'.

Even in WWII, the V-2 was accurate to within a few hundred meters using the SG-66 with multiple stable table PIGAs and within 2km using just the two + Leitstrahl. ONLY the German inability to deconflate Allied disinformation in their media (as a refusal to risk the Ar-234 over Britain) and the Double Cross effort changed this as they literally 'twisted the dials' on their guidance sets in accordance with what we told them were strikes that in fact were anything up to 17km out side the city.

The SS-1E SCUD-D with scene correlation seeker has a CEP of 50m and that's a 1980s weapon.

It would be foolish to allow paranoia or an open desire for conflict with Iran to drive us to assume that large ballistic weapon stockpiles = imminent threat of nuclear holocaust in the Gulf Region or Israel.

It would be equally foolish to smear the ballistic weapon as some kind of 'unholy terror weapon because it isn't accurate enough with anything but mazcat warheads'. This is not true. It has never been true and going back to WWII there is profound evidence that ballistic weapons were not just more accurate than high altitude bombing but ultimately, substantially cheaper as well.

Cheap + 'Good Enough' = Saturation Response to any U.S. or other force's attempt to decapitate the nuclear program with targeted airstrikes in a counter value campaign which wrecks the oil terminals and refinery complexes across half the ME's largest producers. It -may- even be enough to (in the CAVU conditions of the Gulf and IO) to allow for ballistic response to any USN intervention.

So does an avowed murderer who is bent on killing YOU have as much right to bullets and a "delivery system" as anyone? Easy for you to say when you don't know the murderer. By way of illustration, if the Muslims hate the Jews because of the formation of the state of Israel, what was the rationale for the fifteen hundred years prior to that event? Have you even read an unsanitized version of the Kur'an? I think not. Please tell me the results of the census commissioned by the Ottoman Empire of Palestine in 1850. It does not support your world view. The "not Iran's fault" statement is nothing but deflection from the truth about that regime and its intentions. And though it easier to pooh pooh the seriousness of the situation when you're not the target, let me remind you of the tests done by that nation state with a scud and T/E concealed on a freighter. The freighter steamed to a launch location, uncovered, erected and launched said scud and command detonated the warhead (conventional) at about 40 miles in altitude over the designated target. This proof -of-concept test for an EMP attack was successful and requires just one nuclear warhead to bomb US back to the stone age, precipitating an event which at least in numbers of casualties is unrivalled in documented history. Our own government's estimates were revised upwards to 90% casualties within one year.One need to only understand the regime and listen to the warnings to get the rest of the picture. They are telling us and we are too arrogant or ignorant of reality to accept what we hear. WWII was a lexicon of what happens when we continue to make those errors in judgment. Churchill had reason to call it the "great Unnecessary War". Neville Chamberlain, please pick up the courtesy phone....

To: MandS and sfrodnaps, deepest thanks for a good review of the political, strategic and tactical issues. Suggest both might beneffitt along with the president and Mr. Putin from a read of Barbra Tuchman's "The Guns of August" on Europe bungling into WW I, as well as the other items they mention here.

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